


Closing a Door from the Past

by orphan_account



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Romantic Friendship, this isn't going to be what people expect but whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6318745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin gets an unexpected note. He realizes he's still holding onto things from the past year and a half, hopefully he can get some closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closing a Door from the Past

**Author's Note:**

> There was a picture of Kevin and Stoffel talking, where Kevin is sitting and Stoffel is standing. That was part of the inspiration for this. I live for stuff like fic. I did make myself cry a bit at this, I'll be honest.

Kevin was excited, more excited than he had been in 2014. This was his chance to really show what he could do. He knew that he would have to put up decent results in every race, or he’d find himself in another 2015 situation. He hoped that he and Jolyon would be looked at through a similar lens; neither of them had raced in 2015, they were close in age and both had a title behind them, in different categories though.

Last year he had a DNS here, his race had started and ended on the installation lap. He was hopeful that things wouldn’t end that way this year. He was in a different team, with a car he felt good about. He had been with McLaren at race weekends for so long, it was strange to be going to a different team garage. Seeing Stoffel earlier in the day hadn’t helped much. He had wanted to follow the Belgian back, his heart had been telling him to. Thankfully he was with Esteban, who was the reserve driver for their team, to prevent him from doing anything that would get him in trouble.

They had barely talked after Kevin was almost booted from the Austria testing. Stoffel had gotten the testing and things had gone downhill between McLaren and Kevin between then and October, when he had gotten the email. The conversation between Stoffel and him was amicable, as amicable as one could be, given their situations. Before walking away, Stoffel pulled a folded note from one of his front pockets and had handed it to Kevin.

“Jenson wanted me to give this to you. I did not peek, if you’re worried about that. Anyway, see you around?” Stoffel nods and turns to walk away before Kevin can say anything. “Hey Stoffel! Thanks!” Kevin makes sure to call this out, since he knew people would be listening and watching them both this weekend. Thankfully he still had a few minutes before having to do more media things with the team, it was Thursday after all, and Kevin pulls open the note. He wants to crumple the note up and throw it away, but knew that there was an important lesson in all of this.

“Meet me in room 644 @ 9 tonight? I promise to make it worth your while. My number is the same, let me know.” Jenson’s looping scrawl takes up most of the folded page. Kevin’s mind goes to almost 2 years ago; back to the night that started it all. Jenson had taken Kevin under his wing literally and figuratively. Kevin wasn’t upset that it happened, what had hurt was that he hadn’t seen the bad coming sooner.

Pulling out his phone, Kevin is glad that he had not deleted Jenson’s number. He knew Jenson had only some control over what had happened, but he had still been hurt over how things had happened. He knew exactly how Perez had felt at the end of 2013; after all, the same exact thing was done to him. He had been angry at the team and at his former teammate.

“Be there at 9. Anything I need to know before then?” Kevin knew he had to be calm; after all, it was just a meeting between two adults, right? His phone quickly buzzes with an incoming message. “Just bring yourself and wear something comfortable. I just want to talk.” There’s a smiley face at the end of the message from Jenson and Kevin feels better.

“Hey Kevin, let’s get going.” A member of the team is calling out to him, and pulls him out of his thoughts. “Ok, coming.” Stuffing the note in his pocket, he quickly gets up, hoping no one knew what he was doing later.

\--------------

Kevin had forgotten how exhausting Thursdays actually were. It had been exactly a year since he’d had to do all of this. He was in a room with Jolyon that had two beds a couch, which was nice. The team was still trying to save money; they were hoping to score points on Sunday, so that some of their expenses would be paid.

“Don’t you need to leave soon?” Jolyon’s voice comes from the couch. Kevin can only see the other man’s feet from one of the beds. “What time is it?” Kevin’s too lazy to pick up his phone or turn his head fully towards the alarm clock. “8:50! You’re only going down a floor, but you don’t want to get stuck in the elevator.” Jolyon laughs at this. Kevin was still getting used to the other man, but liked him so far. Hoisting himself up, Kevin sighs. “Ok, ok; text me in an hour if I’m not back by then. I don’t want to be out too late. Even in the same hotel.” Slipping his shoes on, he grabs one of the room keys. Turning, he waves to Jolyon, who lifts a hand in response.

Walking to Jenson’s room, Kevin was getting more nervous with each step. He didn’t know what Jenson was going to say. Lifting his hand to knock on the door, it’s opened before his hand can connect with it. “Come in Kevin, please.” Jenson pulls Kevin into the room. Before Kevin can get his bearings, Jenson has pulled him into a hug. Kevin had been on the receiving end of Jenson’s hugs a few times over the seasons they had been teammates, but they had never been like this. Kevin lets himself give into the touch, wraps his arms around Jenson’s middle and puts his head into Jenson’s chest.

“I am so sorry about the way things happened. You didn’t deserve that. I wanted to reach out to you, but didn’t have the strength or the words to be able to do that. Again, I’m so sorry.” Jenson quietly says all this. Kevin wants to cry, this is exactly what he didn’t know he needed to hear. “You don’t have to respond, but I just wanted to tell you.”

Kevin squeezes his arms around Jenson tighter before letting go to look up at the older man. “Thank you. I’ve missed talking to you.” Kevin moves to hug Jenson again; Jenson puts one arm around him and one hand in Kevin’s hair. Kevin can’t help but sniffle at this. “It’s ok Kevin, you can cry. I won’t judge you.” Jenson pulls him closer. Kevin rubs his face into Jenson’s chest, trying to keep himself from full out sobbing. “I’m sorry, for this, it still hurts a little.” Kevin pulls back with another sniffle, Jenson pulls the hand that had been in Kevin’s hair up to Kevin’s face to wipe away some of the tears.

“I know we probably can’t get back to where we were, as teammates or otherwise, but I want to at least be friends with you.” Jenson has a hopeful smile on his face; Kevin knows it’s up to him, that Jenson won’t push him, when it comes to something like this. That was one thing he had always appreciated when they were teammates.

Rubbing his eyes, Kevin nods. “I’d like that. Can I stay in your room for a bit? I told Jolyon I’d be back in an hour at the most.” Instead of speaking, Jenson just leads Kevin to the bed. Jenson gets on the bed first and then pulls Kevin down on top of him. “We don’t have to do anything like we did before, you can lay on me and that’s fine.” Kevin has his head in Jenson’s neck. “I’ll get you up in a while and I’ll get you to put some water on your face before you leave.”

In this moment, Kevin knows things are going to be fine. He has a drive, he has a teammate who’s the same age, and he’s made peace with his previous teammate. He may be exhausted, but he now realizes that it’s the pleasant exhausted that one gets from a good day’s work.


End file.
